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Re:Prefab housing complex for UC Berkeley students goes up i... by smhost on Saturday August 11, 2018 @02:33PM (#17740931)
oh, well, i wouldn't want that. so maybe not ignore the law, but what about just writing in the intent anyway, wouldn't that help with leniency?
Re:Prefab housing complex for UC Berkeley students goes up i... by sgc on Sunday August 12, 2018 @01:30PM (#17745362)
Laws are supposed to be written in such a way as to communicate their intent. It's already there, it's just in terse, technical language. The problem with spelling out intent is it creates a huge attack surface to get a law thrown out or circumvented. It is sort of like trying to program using natural language. People understand better but it functions worse.
Re:Prefab housing complex for UC Berkeley students goes up i... by GauntletWizard on Monday August 13, 2018 @12:40PM (#17751408)
The way we fight this in programming is comments and documentation. Perhaps we need something similar for laws? I see the Federalist Papers mentioned quite often in constitutional law; are there other bodies of debate and paper that provide similar justification around other laws? There might also be room for "non-binding" clauses when writing the law.
Re:Prefab housing complex for UC Berkeley students goes up i... by sgc on Monday August 13, 2018 @08:05PM (#17754611)
Depending on the governing body, there is a process of comment and redaction before a law is adopted which is recorded and can be used to make a case. It serves such a purpose.